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// The Beginning 
// Story: The Origin of Discord 
// by KidatHeart5 
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	Centuries and centuries ago, I wasn’t alive like you. I was but earth, earth on a strange and mysterious island. Like most soils, I grew plants, very strange plants, mind you. I had no mind of my own, but after I became alive, I had an epiphany about how I came to exist. You see, I was just dirt on the island’s highest mountains. I could not see the view, but I felt the refreshing breeze and the sun’s warm rays. It was like my own little paradise, though I had no senses yet.
Then, one day, an odd-looking pony came onto the island’s shores in search of clay for his pottery. He climbed up the mountain and found a patch of earth that was yours truly. He dug the soil up and put them in two clay pots. He took them aboard his ship and sailed back to his home on the mainland.
Clay Spinner was a gray stallion with peach spots all over his body. He had green glasses and a short laurel green mane with a light yellow-green stripe lining the edge of his bangs and tail. He also had freckles, gray eyes, and a clay vase cutie mark. Though he was a talented pottery maker, he was very clumsy. When he took the soil back to his workshop, he wanted to use it for one or two sculptures. Clay Spinner tried to wet it, but it was so resistant. Then he remembered what the island inhabitants told him: he had to use saltwater mixed with sugar to get the soil to be shaped. 
He thought it was a weird solution, but tried it nevertheless. After he created the mixture, he found that it worked on the soil! He then set to work on creating his sculpture. Clay Spinner wanted to pay homage to the island inhabitants, but he also wanted to soften the appearance since the residents were no less than intimidating. He sculpted random parts from other animals in place of some of the original limbs and added some things to what he was going to keep. When he was finished, Clay Spinner was amazed by his own work.
The sculpture was standing on two legs and pawing at the air. The mouth was open with the snake tongue sticking out. The head, very much pony, had a deer antler and a goat horn attached to the skull. The sculpture also had mismatched wings, legs, and arms. It had a tuft at the end of its dragon-like snake tail and a zebra-like mane on the back of its neck. Lastly, it had a fang protruding from its upper lip and the eyes and eyebrows were two different sizes. 
Clay Spinner cried, “Viola! I am finished at last! I have decided to make you unlike anything the ponies have ever seen before. You are but a jumble of animals all pulled into a crazy form. And for that, I shall give you the name…Discord!”
However, unable to show his latest creation to anypony, he felt all alone. In his spare time, he read stories about inanimate objects coming to life. This gave him an idea-what if he could ask somepony to make one of his sculptures real? Then he could have an apprentice…or even better, a child. This is what set course for a history-changing event.
Clay Spinner eventually found a unicorn who was a colleague of Star Swirl the Bearded. Jade Stripes had just received a new set of spells; one of them was a spell to breathe life into sculptures. The earth pony was ecstatic to learn this and made arrangements with the unicorn. The plan was simple: Clay would send a sculpture to Jade so the latter could bring it to life and Jade would send it back to Clay alive and breathing. There was, however, one crucial error that led to a horrible mistake.
Clay had many sculptures of ponies, so it was easy enough. But when he tried to pack one of them in a crate, he was so excited that he bumped himself against the wall, breaking his glasses in the process. All he could see was a blur, so he grabbed what he thought was a pony sculpture pawing in the air and put it in the crate. He sent out the crate without realizing what he had done. For the moment, he was so excited that he would have a new resident soon.
Jade Stripes was a dark green unicorn with a green mane and a similarly-colored tail with light green stripes. He had jade eyes and wore a light green hat to mimic Star Swirl the Bearded. He also had three stripes, each a different hue of green, for his cutie mark. He was practicing his spells when the crate arrived. He opened it and was repulsed by the sculpture within. It looked like no mere pony, but a strange assortment of different creature parts, all connected in a single serpentine body. Clay had not sent a pony sculpture, but the one he called “Discord”!
Jade thought it was strange, but he decided to practice using the life spell on it. He positioned Discord on the table and angled his horn towards it. He recited while his horn glowed violet, “Lifeless sculpture made from earth, let this moment be your birth!” Just then, a violet ray of magic shot at the sculpture and surrounded it like an aura. The magic absorbed into the clay figure and a small white burst of light followed. A few moments of silence later, the clay began to dissolve under lines of white creeping around the sculpture, making way for newly-formed flesh from underneath. When the white lines were done dissolving the clay, a newly-alive Discord stood in his position for just a few seconds before falling to the ground.   
The unicorn chuckled, “Well, hello, little fellow. Must’ve been quite a fall, huh?” As Jade was saying the second sentence, Discord dizzily looked up and tried to regain his senses. He couldn’t speak or think intelligently when he was brought to life. All he was at the moment was a confused animal. 
Jade said, “You were sent here by mistake, but that’s good, because I didn’t know whether or not the spell would work. But now that I do know, I’ll tell Clay Spinner the good news and that there was a mix-up with the sculptures. If he doesn’t want you, I’ll keep you with me. It would be interesting to have a pet that was brought to life, but since you’re a new creature, I’m going to have to take notes on you. Now stay here and don’t move.” 
As soon as Jade left his laboratory, Discord sat in silence for a while. He didn’t understand anything Jade Stripes said and was confused about everything. When his stomach grumbled, he knew one thing for certain: he was hungry. He sniffed around for food and came upon a strange bottle on the work desk. Discord was drawn to the bottle labeled “New Potion” and grabbed it quickly. He tried to drink from it, but he saw that a cork was blocking the neck. He voraciously pulled the cork off with his teeth and drank the potion heartily. 
Suddenly, a sharp, revolting taste ran through his mouth and Discord began gagging, dropping the bottle in the process. A strange sensation like a jolt and nausea combined soon followed suit. He was retching, coughing, and writhing on the floor by the time Jade Stripes hurried back. “My word!” the unicorn cried when he saw the scene before him. His horn glowed and a bunch of special mint levitated towards Discord. Jade Stripes held the creature in his hoofs and force-fed him the mint. Discord relaxed within moments, but his eyes were weary and exhausted from the incident. 
Jade Stripes soothed, “There, there. Do you feel better now?” He turned to the broken bottle with periwinkle fluid seeping out. He shook his head and tsked, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You should know better than to drink something unknown. Now I’ll have to make a new batch of the potion. In the meantime…”
He levitated a weak Discord towards a cage as he continued, “…you stay here, where you’ll be out of trouble.” Discord didn’t think twice about it before falling asleep as soon as Jade locked the door.